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9.04.2005

In Which I Love The Target

I love the Target. Can I just tell you? I love the Target. I have a testimony of the Target. In fact, let's be honest here, I'd live at the Target if they sold beds like at Macy's.

(That has always been a dream of mine; living in a mall and browsing from store to store after hours, and sleeping in a Ralph Lauren bed on the 3rd floor of Sears, and eating nothing but Wetzels Pretzels and Orange Julius and Panda Express and trying on shoes at Nordstrom all night long.)

Truthfully, I can't make it out of the Target without spending at least $100 on wonderfully useless things. It is always surprising to me how quickly little cheap things can become so very expensive, and today's Target day was just a day like that.

Today's Target day was the same as always and yet so, so different, and discombobulating (a fantastic word), and disorienting, and so now here is the story of today's Target Day, a.k.a., How I Learned How to Shop in NYC The Hard Way.



So let's set the stage. The Brooklyn Target. Atlantic Avenue.

They all have the same things and the same dollar section (ohhh, my love the dollar section!) and essentially the same layout, except the Brooklyn Target is two stories tall and has two escalators; one for you, one for your cart, and the Brooklyn Target is the only Target in all of New York City and it is super fantastically crazy there. I got in cart fender-benders (risked my life!), got boxed-in at the electronics section, and I stepped on at least three smallish kids, but I had a list and I am a pro and I was going to SURVIVE.

We just moved to New York City and my freakishly small apartment has no trashcan, no towels, no pillows, sheets, shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, or dishes. This apartment has no hangers, no laundry detergent, no nothing.

This is something like the third or fourth apartment I've set up in my silly life, and I will tell you right now that I am not bragging when I say I'm a bit of an expert at buying all the condiments you will need in your fridge in order to survive in one big huge shopping excursion. I know how to buy a spice rack, folks. It's like, super easy, you load up your cart, you load up your car, then you spend all week unloading the car and finding homes for things, and then it's like you've been there forever, you know? Forever and ever amen and I'm really ridiculously good at it, is all I'm saying.

So I was going through the motions, right? Pillows: into the cart. Candles: into the cart. Ajax and Soft Scrub: into the cart. Cute tee-shirts because I felt like I deserved it: into the cart. Right?

The lines at Brooklyn Target are insanely insane. They're long. They're soo long. I had finally gotten up to the front and had all my Target goodies rung up and double-bagged and put back in the cart and as I wheeled the cart toward the front entrance, all my Target bags teetering perilously taller than my head, I remembered that I no longer owned a car.

(I no longer own a car!)

And the security guard was giving me this look, like he knew I obviously had no idea what I was doing, or else I'd have a team of line backers to carry everything home for me, and seriously, what was I thinking?

And that's when I realized I'd have to carry everything I bought home, and that in order to get home I had to walk four blocks in the heart of stinking Brooklyn, in the height of stinking sweltering summer, and then somehow make it through the stinking subway turnstiles in one go, even though me and all my bags were the width of three stinking subway turnstiles easily, and then holy moley did I get one wicked case of buyers remorse, my friends!

No I didn't panic. Okay maybe a smidge. I mostly calmly assessed the situation. I was about to attempt the impossible: I was going to carry a $300 Target bonanza all the way to the subway, and then all the way home.

I loaded up my arms. The plastic handles cut into my skin. Now is not a time for pain, I told myself. Now is a time for heroes!

And I did it! Me and my trash can and my broom and my eight million cleaning products and my sheets and towels and moisturizer and food and dishes and candles and bed raisers and hangers and dryer sheets and a Sigur Ros CD for good measure, we made it home. Sweaty, exhausted, but in one piece.

I fought the Brooklyn Target today, my friends. I fought it, and I won.

11 comments:

  1. I always like to go back and read the very first post that people write on their blogs... I think the first post feels so much more monumental than most others.
    And this? This is a great first post. :)

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  2. oh my, I was moving into my very own first NYC apt at that very same time. It made me smile to think we might have been at that Target at the very same time for the very same reason. I just love small worlds. When I lived in NYC, I used to hop on the 4 train and head all the way down to that Target (from the UES!) on yucky days just for those bright Target lights so I could pretend it was actually a nice day. (It is always sunny in Target, am I right?)

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  3. BAHAHAHAHA!! I just went back and re read this thanks to your post this morning and laughed out loud. I am IMPRESSED, but not at all surprised that you did it. New York Natalie all the way!!!

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  4. OH my! You are amazing! I had many a similar excursion in NYC. One from the Target up near Harlem, oh my, took my goodies (including a large storage bin on the BUS! Good stuff. Love this post because it brings back such great, funny memories of my own NYC experience. Thanks for sharing!

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  5. Just found this post and it made me miss my days in New York and not at the same time! I remember moving to my tiny apartment and the first time I went grocery shopping refusing to take my wheely cart my mom bought me on my first day in the city. I thought it looked stupid. Boy did I feel stupid carrying all my groceries home having forgotten that I would have to do that. Thanks for letting me live vicariously through you. Hopefully one day soon I will get back there and visit my former life!

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  6. Im just moving intercontinentally in 9 days to NY from Italy and have been awake since a sick hour with moving worries. This post was the best thing to read, not to mention a good reminder of what to put on my shopping list. And guess what? I already have the directions for the target closest to me when I arrive! Love your blog, thanks for keeping it real.

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  7. This post just made me so happy! Funny stuff.

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  8. I just cried laughing. THIS is exactly the situation I ask New Yorkers about when I meet them. I always say "How do you grocery shop? How do you buy stuff from IKEA?" Obviously, this is not the way most New Yorkers do it, but I am so impressed :)

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  9. We made a trip to the same Target the first week we lived here and vowed to never return - and we have a car! I almost think it would be easier to get to and from that Target on the subway if it weren't for the turnstiles. Atlantic Ave is just ridiculous and kind of scary.

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  10. This is awesome. Not quite on the same level, but my first winter in Kansas City I decided that I absolutely had to get things at Target during a massive snowstorm only to realize that I had to somehow get said things home in a massive snowstorm. Target is worth some herculean effort, man.

    Kudos to you, Target warrior.

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